Oshkosh,
WI (CHN): According to a recently published Gallop Survey, confusion
about Swiss Chard has now reached the highest level since the Reagan
Administration when it was presumed that exotic vegetable awareness
would simply trickle down to the masses.

The
gallop poll also indicated that 22% of Americans regularly mistake the
leafy vegetable for 'Swiss Chode' when reading about it in cookbooks or
romance novellas.

Swiss Chard farmers blame the new findings and
also other historic mistakes directly on the Chard Horticulture
Establishment & Eating Society Emissary or C.H.E.E.S.E. who
recently designated 'National Swiss Chard Awareness Week' the same week
as the International Cheese Clubs 'All things Swiss' Parade and Dinner
Dance in Chippewa County Wisconsin.

"We have very few
recognizable products that bare our proud name" admits Swiss alphorn
blower Johannes Bjorg. He continued, "Swiss Miss Hot Chocolate has been
a thorn in our side for decades and as you know Swiss Army knives have
the been the butt of most cutlery jokes for over 100 years". Bjorg's
frustration was well founded considering a rash of bad luck and missed
opportunity throughout Chard history; the following chart was
commissioned to identify the largest problems (click to enlarge):

Vegetable
historians believe that the biggest blow to the 'Sea beet' descendant
was the 1931 decision by Warner Brothers animators to have Popeye eat a
can of spinach instead of the originally scripted cans of Swiss Chard.
According to C.H.E.E.S.E. President Dirk Dairyman the deep pockets of
'Big Spinach' were "far too powerful" for our product to compete with.

Nutritional
experts now believe that most Americans have been mistakenly using
Swiss Cheese instead of chard in a host of recipes. "At the turn of the
century grilled Swiss Chard sandwiches were all the rage," said food
historian Jacques LeParee. He continued, "America's youth today
wouldn't know what to do with a chard sandwich if it jumped up and bit
them... although I think they would try to smoke it".

The Gallop
poll may well have punctuated the public relations failure of the Chard
lobby. In so doing it seems to also indicate a larger problem with American
culinary consumers who seem to misidentify many common foods. An
astounding 88% of all single men are found to believe that steel cut
oats are a type of structural lumber and nearly 40% thought that
pumpkin spice was a female musician.